Is Sati still being practiced?

Tweet

There was an article in our sunday newspaper from Baniyani, India. An unused cornfield at the edge of an isolated village is considered by many as a holy place and are prevented from worshipping there by the police. Just a couple of months ago a widow chose to be burned alive more than 175 years after India's former colonial rulers outlawed sati. The article stated that India remains two countries...a place both urban and rural, modern and preindustrial, educated and illiterate. Ranjana Kumari from New Delhi, a prominent women's rights activist said "India's modernization has not really reached out to our far-and-beyond villages. It's very urban, it's very metropolitan, it's very middle class. We are many cultural nations within one nation." I guess there are little pockets of people living the "old ways" in every country.